


Dragonman, Dragonman, Between Thee and Thine

by wargoddess



Series: Mass Dragon Ages of Mecha Pern [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Mecha, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:45:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6578140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>K'ver learns what it means to be Weyrwoman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragonman, Dragonman, Between Thee and Thine

**Author's Note:**

> No rape, note, but sexual harassment and some threats.

     K'ver is half awake, in a sprawl as usual, in a bed that is not his own, with the warm weight of someone else's body half atop his and his dragon's warm satisfaction in his mind. None of this is new for him. A lot of youths found on search hate the idea of becoming a green rider, once they think they know what it means. They fear losing themselves in the grip of strange hands, the bite of hungry teeth on shoulder or nipple, the relentless grind of cocks or cunts or other secret flesh -- but K'ver _knows himself_ through these things. He's seen how people who once would never have found him beautiful (too much muscle, too pale-skinned, too long a jaw, too old or young, too male) stare when their dragons get a taste of his mind. He knows by these reactions that he is intelligent and fierce and strong-willed, and that these things make him beautiful. Once he was such an insecure boy. These days, far from being lost in his dragon's sexuality, he lives a certainty that he never had when he was just an ordinary person, with just one soul.

     <<Like I would let you be lost in it,>> murmurs his other self. She's sleepy, too, but in a good mood because K'ver is. And why is K'ver in such a good mood? Sodding good sex, of course. A whole lovely night of it.

     The body on top of his own stirs a little, and K'ver feels the questing transmissions of another mind before it finds and comfortably locks onto his own. C'len's thoughts are shining and upright and implacable, like their owner, though for the moment they have softened greatly. He stirs more on K'ver and K'ver feels a mouth find his, nuzzle his lips apart, begin delving into it despite the morning breath. K'ver finds he likes being kissed awake, especially when the gentle, repeated intrusions of another tongue make him think of other gentle, repeated intrusions, and get him thinking about how to make those other intrusions happen. He shifts, just a little, not wanting to break the pleasant haze of desire. Just suggesting. Inviting. He's right here, after all, legs open, everything available, and it's the work of a moment to summon an omni-sheath for cock or fingers.

     C'len responds to these physical cues with the perfect reflexes of a bronze rider: deepening his oral explorations and drawing fingertips down K'ver's arm. He really seems to like K'ver's arms for some reason. Nothing wrong with it. Weird maybe, but nice. Ah, yes, and his hips nudge forward a little, letting K'ver know that C'len's the sort to wake up with a bit of fire in his stone. K'ver suppresses a snort of amusement at his own stupid, anachronistic joke, even as Lotherinth groans and sends a psychic protest that she has to put up with someone like him.

     C'len, damn him, pulls out of K'ver's mouth with a soft slurp and looks up in response to that groan. "Good morning, Lotherinth," he says. K'ver loves that C'len is always so attentive to his dragon, even though it means that sometimes he stops attending to business. "Did you rest well?"

     <<Yes, very well,>> she says back. K'ver sees C'len's eyebrows rise; she's talking directly to him. <<But K'ver is trying to entice you to mate, so please ignore me.>>

     "Tattle-tale," K'ver grumbles.

     C'len looks down at him, a wry expression on his face. "Are you, now?"

     "Yeah." K'ver shrugs, stretching a little, but he's grinning sheepishly. "Was gonna be more subtle about it, maybe. Sodding dragon."

     <<He isn't sore at all after last night, he wants you to know,>> Lotherinth adds. She's laid her head down and is watching them, eyes whirling and tail-tip flicking with mischief. <<He likes that you were so gentle, but at some point he would like you to 'hammer him through a wall like a hatchling going at a shell.' My shell was very difficult to get through, I remember. I hope you do not hammer him quite _that_ hard. >>

     "For fuck's sake, Loth!" K'ver half sits up to glare at her; his face is hot. C'len has collapsed onto him, laughing, and even Honnleath is rumbling faintly, the dragonish equivalent of a chuckle. The mood's completely dead. K'ver falls back onto the couch and throws an arm over his eyes, groaning in frustration.

     C'len sits up. He's still grinning, though he kisses K'ver's elbow where it covers his face. (He's always so tender. Bronze riders are usually rougher, demanding. K'ver likes that this bronze rider is different.) "She has your sense of humor."

     "Yeah. She bloody does, Maker help her."

     "Does she usually speak to your weyrmates?"

     "No. But I don't usually have anybody I'd call a _weyrmate_ , so to speak, just blokes and lady-types who come by when I need an itch scratched. I'm a green rider."

     He starts to shrug with this, and then can't, because his sleep- and lust-muddled thoughts have cleared, and now he remembers that Lotherinth isn't a green anymore, and now he's a _queen_ rider, not a green rider. He pulls his arm down and looks up at her again, and it's so _strange_ that she's goldy-green now instead of greeny-silver like she used to be. And bigger, too, though otherwise she looks the same. He can't help staring a little.

     She stirs again, and now her eyes tinge white with anxiety. <<Are you unhappy with me now?>>

     _Never_ , he sends at once, and it's true. She's still his Lotherinth, and he will love her until they're both ash. _I do miss your old coloring a bit, but I'll get used to the new. You're still you, anyway, and you're still fucking amazing._

     She says nothing in reply to this, but her eyes darken back to normal again, and he senses her anxiety lift.

     It's the rest that he's not sure he'll ever get used to, though. The lower caverns folk moved him into a bigger weyr a few days before, while he was out one day. He needed it; the old weyr's dragon couch wasn't big enough for Lotherinth's new form. But the new apartment is bigger and better-furnished than his old one, and the bed's sodding huge, and he feels himself sort of rattling about in it. Which is why it's good that he can come here and sleep with C'len, now, for as long as this lasts, because at least here if he's going to feel like he's wandering about in a stranger's home, he can get sex in the bargain.

     He's been silent for a while, contemplating things, when he becomes aware that C'len is watching him. There's concern in C'len's face, and maybe he's troubled? Shit, K'ver just basically told him that K'ver isn't much for monogamy. The time to have that conversation generally isn't when a fellow's dick is nestled up against your own, still half-interested.

     "Not a green rider, anymore, no," C'len says, surprising K'ver in turn; he's not thinking about the "no weyrmates" thing at all. "There will be new expectations of you, now. New responsibilities. But I'm confident of your ability to answer them."

     K'ver shrugs. He doesn't know if he can or not. "Suppose I should've paid attention to how queenriders do things before now. Not that Meredith was any normal example."

     C'len grimaces. "No. Is Meredith the only queen's rider you've known, though?"

     _Oh, here we go_. K'ver sighs. "Well, there's my sister Marian, who rides gold Amelth. But I haven't seen her since we came here from Ferelden Weyr. Our dragons were all young, then, but Meredith packed Marian and Amelth off to Skyhold Weyr immediately, because Meredith was a wanker and didn't like having potential rivals around. I suppose I could write her."

     C'len's eyebrows rise. "Do you not, already?"  


     "No." He hopes C'len will leave it at that. C'len does, which is a point in his favor, but he looks so troubled that K'ver feels guilty. He sighs. "We've never really been close. She's years older, and I had my twin."

     "You have a twin?"

     Deep breaths. "Not anymore. She... it was Reapers." C'len stiffens, so K'ver has to say all of it. C'len has told him of Kinloch; an exchange of tragedies seems fitting. "We were all Search kids, see. Just farmers, nothing special, except that our father was a broken dragonrider, and our mother came from a long line of weyr stock. Not surprising at all that we ended up Searched. But before that we were poor people making our way in the arse end of Ferelden Hold."

     C'len shifts uncomfortably. "Your father..." Broken dragonriders disturb any rider. The idea of continuing to exist after one's other soul has been lost to illness or injury...

     "Having a family made him whole again, mostly. But he died of sickness, and then the next year the dragonriders showed up. We got installed at Ferelden Weyr. You know it got blighted."

     "I do, but..." C'len shifts again, and it's not sexy this time. Nothing's happy down there, anymore, given the subject matter. K'ver resigns himself to not getting any this morning. "I've never understood _how_ a Reaper ground force caught a full-strength weyr by surprise."

     "Bloody incompetence, is how. And maybe some malice." K'ver stretches again, folds an arm behind his head to make himself comfortable. It's nice having C'len on him, cuddling even if they're not going to fuck. It's nice having him near, period. "Ferelden Weyr's all the way to the south, right? Above a wasteland called the Korcari Wilds. Beyond that's just... ice. Nothing lives there. Reapers never hit it before, not in hundreds of years of Reaperfall. Useless to them and us. But one day a wing of blue riders doing a southerly circuit said they saw signs of a barrage out that way, over the ice. The Weyrleader, L'ghain, decided they were lying to try and support his rival -- young guy named Ca'lan, flew a bronze named Orlaith, anyway all of 'em are dead now so it doesn't matter -- and he ignored the warning. Even pulled the existing patrols back." K'ver shrugged. "The blue riders tried to get some of the bronzes to check it out, since only bronzes and queens can handle that kind of long-distance circuit safely, but they were just blue riders. Nobody listened."

     C'len's expression has tightened. "I cannot imagine such folly," he says. "Green and blue dragons are vital to any weyr, and _no_ dragonrider's judgment should be questioned where it comes to Reapers. Overcaution is always better than carelessness."

     K'ver finds himself smiling. C'len sounds so _offended_ that any weyrleader could undervalue their greens or blues. That's why K'ver likes him, among other reasons. "Yeah, well." He sobers. "So, when the whole great load of Reaper ground troops that had established a foothold down there ran up through the wilds in a bloody horde, there were no patrols to cry warning. We realized they were there when they started pouring through the entrances to the lower caverns. A Brute crushed Ca'lan. Husks tore apart L'ghain while he was still mustering the weyr; his death, with everyone linked to his mind and sharing the trauma, pretty much shattered any attempt at an organized defense. Riders were too fucked up to think, let alone go Knight."

     "Maker," C'len says. Then he shakes his head. "'A weyr without a leader is worse than no weyr at all,' they say."

     "Dunno about that, but it was a sodding shit-show, that's for sure," K'ver sighs. "Marian and I were just weyrlings, not even assigned to a wing yet. Amelth had only just started flying, and Lotherinth could barely chew eezo without setting herself on fire. We -- the weyrlings, I mean, the dozen or so of us -- bugged out, and tried to take as many of the lower caverns folk with us as we could. My mother and twin sister were in the lot. So imagine all of us running through the sodding forest, with nothing but the clothes on our backs and nought but clumsy adolescent dragons to guard the rear. Marian was trying to play hub for us, but half the weyrlings were still freaking out, half-trapped in L'ghain's memories of husks chewing on his throat, and..." He sighs, rubbing his eyes and trying not to see all of it again. C'len is staring at him, in horror. Yeah, well. "But you know how hard it is to outrun Reapers. Another Brute... I, I couldn't become a Knight Dragon back then. I tried, but I was too scared, couldn't focus. We fought and killed it the old-fashioned way, Marian and Amelth and Loth and I, but we just weren't fast enough..."

     He can't say any more. C'len has grown still on him. K'ver wishes he would move, because that might distract K'ver from memory. It's not a playback from Lotherinth, but K'ver's simple organic memories are more than sufficient to recreate that awful night. The smell of eezo-ozone and ash, blowing up from the south where some of the dragons were desperately trying to stop the enemy pouring into the weyr through its ground-level entrances. The Brute's roar as it charged K'ver's mother. Bethany whispering _Maker, give me strength_ , as she flung herself into its path...

     "She was studying to be a dragon healer," K'ver blurts. "They kept wanting to groom her for a queenrider, but she didn't want to be a rider; she wanted to _fix_ riders, and dragons." He remembers her crawling all over Lotherinth, tickling the hatchling terribly, trying to study how dragons were put together. He remembers showing her how to scratch Lotherinth's eye ridges, and Bethany primly informing him that dragons liked this because they had thousands more nerves attached to their eyes than humans did.

     Lotherinth croons at K'ver, trying to soothe him. <<I miss her, too. Her hands were soft. I liked her.>>

     _Know you did, love_.

     Very softly, C'len says, "I'm sorry."

     K'ver swallows. He's not really feeling like cuddling anymore, so he shifts a bit in warning. C'len obligingly lets him up, and they sit up together. K'ver draws up his knees and props his arm on them. "I blamed Marian for a while. Wasn't really her fault. Baby queenrider, trying to play a role that an experienced weyrwoman couldn't have done easily? It's a miracle any of us survived. No. That we survived is a testament to her. But... it took me a long time to understand that." He gives a shrug that he doesn't really feel. "I was an ass. So we don't talk anymore, she and I. But. I guess I can try again."

     C'len nods, slowly. Then he puts a hand on K'ver's. Not judging, just offering support. It's nice. Strange. New. But K'ver sort of likes it.

     "I am glad you survived," C'len says finally, softly. "I... know something of what Reapers do to a weyr, when they can."

     "Yeah." He's told K'ver of Kinloch Weyr. Everyone knows the story already: Somehow, someone among the weyr's complement got indoctrinated. That's all it takes, one person dabbling in forbidden tech, or not reporting an infection. They convert others. Grow in secret. Then suddenly it's abominations running through the corridors and dragons disintegrating into nanites in their couches.

     C'len says, "They put me in a cage."

     Now it's K'ver's turn to grow still. "They?"

     "The indoctrinated riders. In the lower caverns. They'd cobbled together some sort of devices, there, from Reaper scraps. The spikes, of course, always those, but also... biomechanical pods. Each large enough for a human body. They stuffed each of us into one. It tried to indoctrinate me. Plagued me with vision after vision of horrors, of... of a girl I cared for at the time. The pods killed -- converted into nanites -- anyone who broke." C'len's lip curls in something that isn't a smile. "The others, my friends, all died. I nearly broke, too. I didn't, but that's only because I had Honnleath to help me. And only because he and the other riderless dragons went to Warden Weyr for help. The Wardens raided and rescued me before the indoctrination could take hold."

     Shell of the Maker-Dragon. This part K'ver hadn't heard. "You had to be pretty strong to survive that," he says, troubled. "Not just because of Honnleath. The other riders had dragons, too, yeah? It was _you_."

     Honnleath croons agreement. C'len's still smiling that bitter smile, but then he lowers his gaze for a moment. "Perhaps." He looks at K'ver. "I've never told anyone that."

     K'ver swallows. Yeah, he can imagine. And K'ver will have to make sure that doesn't get out, either, or the weyr might start to doubt a rider who was nearly indoctrinated. There are some who think any exposure to Reapers, however slight, means irreversible contamination. That's not true, but doubt is deadly now, with the weyr's leadership in contention.

     And K'ver is painfully touched that C'len has confessed this. He doesn't know what to think of this level of trust. He's just a green rider. Except he isn't. And except... except C'len wanted him, trusted him, even when he was.

     K'ver raises a hand to touch C'len's back, but hesitates. He can do that, can't he? Soothe a man he's slept with once, feels powerfully drawn toward, and maybe could love? Will C'len bear tenderness from him? Bronze riders are such a prickly bunch, but this one is different.

     <<He feels safe with you.>>

     K'ver manages -- just -- not to jump. That voice in his mind is different from Lotherinth's. Harder-edged, brassy. He looks up and sees Honnleath watching him intently. Slowly the dragon shuts his eyes and opens them again. Their version of a nod.

     Well. All righty, then. He lays his hand on C'len's back, and feels the tension in the muscles there. But at the touch, the tension starts to bleed out. C'len leans against K'ver, his weight growing until K'ver is bearing most of it. He's not that heavy, but it's significant that C'len does it at all. That C'len feels safe letting K'ver share his burdens.

     K'ver doesn't know what to do with any of this. He's used to being wanted, but not _needed_. Still... he stretches up and kisses C'len's forehead. C'len sighs. The dragons hum. It'll do, for now.

#

     C'len has to go off and do Acting Weyrleader stuff. K'ver has to do the weyrwoman version; C'len's given him the task of handling all the crap that Meredith neglected while she was in charge. But first he heads to his quarters for a shower, because even though he spent half the night with C'len's dick in some part or another of him, he's a little shy of just treating the man's quarters like his own without being specifically invited to do so. It's clear already that C'len is ridiculously private.

     So he's in the shower, turning beneath the spray and thinking about C'len's fingers on his nipples and _Maker_ he wishes they could've gotten around to that morning lay, because he's pretty sure C'len was being really careful of him the night before and that was nice -- so nice -- but K'ver wants a good thorough _test drive_ , frotting and sucking and biting and fucking and even that weird thing where C'len strokes his arms, which shouldn't be a bloody turn-on but _is_ somehow. The water feels like C'len's tongue which makes Carver turn his face into the spray, except C'len's tongue is so much more deft and tender and --

     -- and he's reaching for his own dick and the soap when Lotherinth trumpets a greeting on the landing pad.

     Fuck.

     He flips the water to cold, yelps when it actually stings like icy cold mountain water does, then sighs and gets out to greet his visitor.

     It's F'ris. The bronze rider looks as uncomfortable in K'ver's new weyr as K'ver feels. He stands near the big couch, not sitting on it, shifting from foot to foot, though some of that's just the way F'ris is. He's never still. He's a brown man, lanky and lean for a bronze rider, though K'ver knows from experience that he's strong as shit and one of the best fighters in the weyr. But he doesn't like the spotlight, doesn't want responsibility for others, or so he _says_. K'ver's pretty much found this to be bullshit; F'ris is fierce in looking after those he cares about. Only reason he's not higher-ranked among the bronze riders is because he'd happily shank the majority of them, and isn't shy about letting them know it.

     K'ver's glad to be counted among the man's few friends, though, so he grins as he trots down the steps from the weyr's apartment level. Tevinth, F'ris' taciturn bronze, rumbles a greeting at K'ver, and K'ver waves back. Tevinth is a lovely creature, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the lacing of snout-to-tailtip scars that he carries from a too-close encounter with a Destroyer when he was young. The white lines of scar tissue are curiously symmetrical, even beautiful... though F'ris has told K'ver that the markings cause them both pain on a constant basis.

     Lotherinth croons and briefly twines necks with Tevinth, but then slinks away to the upper-level couch rather than curling up with him. K'ver raises his eyebrows at this, and feels a little bad for Tevinth who glumly settles into the lower-level couch alone. _Thought you liked his dick?_ he asks her. Tevinth is the bronze who flew Lotherinth on her last mating flight.

     <<It _is_ a very nice dick, >> Lotherinth agrees, with a soft hum at the memory. <<But that was then, and now he must prove again that it is worthy of me.>>

     K'ver is staring at her in surprise when F'ris utters a rusty low chuckle and comes over. "Love is ever fickle among dragons," he says, pausing to incline his head to Lotherinth. "And now that your lady is a queen, K'ver, you will have to accustom yourself to her being pickier than before. She's no longer choosing a friend for an afternoon of relief, after all, but a co-designer for her AI children."

     Shit. Yeah. K'ver grimaces, hating that he's once again forgotten this. "Tevinth's a great dragon, though. He'd make nice babies."

     <<Perhaps,>> Lotherinth says, then settles her great head and watches them again, tail-tip flicking. Tevinth glances at K'ver, and K'ver could swear the dragon looks grateful. Then he, too, settles.

     K'ver beckons F'ris to sit down, noting that someone has been in to set down a pot of klah and a bowl of porridge. There's enough klah to share, at least, so K'ver starts to pour for them both. F'ris, though, catches his wrist, and takes the pot from his hand. "I will pour."

     "The sod are you -- "

     "Queenriders serve only their chosen weyrmates, if at all. For you to honor me like so, when all know how C'len hovers in attendance, sends a message that you might not intend."

     Really? K'ver stares at him, then settles back with his klah once F'ris hands it to him. Something as simple as who pours for whom matters now? It's bizarre. What other weird shit about being a queenrider doesn't he know?

     F'ris leans forward and puts a hand on his knee. "Be calm."

     "I am calm," K'ver snaps, tossing back the klah like a shot.

     F'ris looks amused. "This is not so difficult, K'ver. It's just a change." He sobers. "Have you lain with C'len?"

     Oh, for -- "How's that any of your sodding business, F'ris? You made it clear _you_ weren't interested."

     F'ris winces, and takes his hand off K'ver's knee. "Were you interested in me?"

     "Maybe."

     "Prevarication ill becomes you, K'ver."

     K'ver rolls his eyes. " _Maybe_. Fuck should I know if I'd have liked you sticking around, when you didn't stick around? You're one of the few I'd have been willing to try with, _maybe_ , but it didn't happen and that's that."

     He pours more klah -- for himself, if _that's_ fucking allowed -- while F'ris stares at him. When the bronze rider speaks, he is subdued. "I did not think that you might even consider... permanence."

     "Yeah, well." K'ver shrugs, then relents. "I'm... not good at _saying_ things like that, I guess."

     F'ris nods. "Nor am I, for I should have asked." He sighs. It's done. "It does not surprise me, then, that you were the one whose dragon upgraded. Beyond the fact that you have been one of the clandestine leaders of this weyr for some time."

     "What?"

     F'ris shrugs. "The weyr reshaped your dragon into what it needed. But it cannot reshape a human; we are not so malleable as AIs. It therefore chose a dragon whose human already had the makings of a good Weyrwoman -- including the potential to form a strong, singular bond with your Weyrleader."

     K'ver frowns at this, turning it over in his head. "Huh."

     F'ris leans forward. "Have you lain with him?"

     "Fucking _relay-between_ , F'ris. Yeah, if you really need to know." He blushes. Maker, he hasn't blushed in ages. "Last night. Would've had him again this morning, but for my damn dragon." Lotherinth, half asleep, sends him an image of a human middle finger. It's something Bethany taught her, ages ago, and K'ver kind of loves that his dragon has such attitude. He grins back at her.

     F'ris takes a deep breath. "You should not lie with him again before the flight."

     K'ver sets his cup down hard enough to slosh klah onto the table. "Yeah, so tell me why I shouldn't kick you out, right sharding now."

     F'ris sets his jaw. "Lotherinth will fly soon. All the dragons feel it. C'len surely knows it. It is why he has seduced you."

     "There was no _seducing_. He asked me to bed. I wanted him already, so I had him. And he wanted me _before,_ when Loth was a green. _You shit_."

     "Perhaps he did. But now you are useful to him. Valuable." F'ris leans in, intent. "You _know_ what it's like in the days before a female dragon flies. You will ache to be touched, completed. The need will make you restless and irritable and irrational -- and susceptible to manipulation. It is the nature of bronze riders to try and _dominate_ others, K'ver. They may not have bothered when you were only a green, when it was only pleasure at stake, but now you represent power. If C'len did not seduce you, others surely will try."

     "I've always had lots of blokes trying to get in my pants." He's uneasy, though, because this sounds different. This is not just being wanted as a lover; it is being _hunted_ , like prey. "Since before Lotherinth, even. Always the sort out there that likes them a nice strong farmboy."

     F'ris half-smiled, sadly. "They will try harder for you now. They will be more forceful, and angrier when you refuse. They will coerce, press. Some may even force -- " F'ris raised a hand as K'ver bristled. "Not that way. No dragon would tolerate it."

     "And I'd sodding _cut_ them!"

     F'ris smiles, then sobers. "That too. But there are other ways to whitter away at a queenrider's choice until it barely exists. This C'len. Does he touch you often? Try to keep you near him? Does he bite you, lick you, try to -- " F'ris blushes, as he damn well should. "Try to put his seed in you, or on your skin? I recall you like having a man in you."

     K'ver groans. Can there possibly be a more awkward conversation to have? F'ris has been the man in him more than once. K'ver's deliberately crude because of the awkwardness. "Yeah, he was balls-deep in my arse for a good while last night, 'cause we were _fucking_ , see. He also went in my mouth, though he tried to pull out; I wouldn't let him. Some of that got on my hands, and -- "

     F'ris grimaces, but bulls on. "That is how the influence is set. It is a danger, and an animal thing, for those linked to the larger dragons -- like Impressing, in a way, forging deep psychic ties you may not even be aware of. And it is worse because _the weyr_ wants C'len. It wants you for him. The psychic pressure on you must be enormous. Now that he has had you, you may like C'len's scent more than that of others, for several days. Prefer his touch. Be more inclined to believe his blandishments. When she flies, such small things will make a difference to Lotherinth."

     K'ver was staring at him, furious. And. And maybe a little horrified, because --

     _No. C'len wanted me before_.

     But what if it's true? What if C'len didn't actually mean any of the things he's said? What if _the weyr_ somehow made him say them? Is this what it means to be a queenrider, now -- never being able to trust a bloody thing? Never knowing who loves you, and who's just using you to get something else they want?

     _I thought he was the one. Maker, I felt like... like I loved him._

     F'ris actually sounds regretful at having upset K'ver. He sighs and sits back. "You should write to your sister. There are... nuances to this that only another queenrider can truly understand."

     K'ver feels his lip curl. "C'len said the same thing. But maybe you're both trying to _manipulate_ me, yeah?"

     F'ris sighs. "Now you will second-guess yourself at every turn. I knew I should have said nothing -- but I meant only to help." He sighs. "Do you trust your sister, at least?"

     "With my life," K'ver admits. He rubs his eyes. "Nothing _else_ , but... fuck. Fine. I'll go see her."

     "No. Lotherinth could rise any day now. You must stay near Kirkwall."

     "Oh, for -- " K'ver got up, beginning to pace in his frustration. "I'm not a bloody weyrling, F'ris. Lotherinth's flown twenty or thirty times, now. Nobody gave a shit where I went when she was proddy before!"

     F'ris' voice, which K'ver once thought was so damned sexy, is implacable now. "Lotherinth's mating flights could not upend the power structure of an entire weyr, before." F'ris got up. "I will go to Skyhold for you, and deliver the message that you need her, to Marian. I'll see that she comes, even if I must carry her on Tevinth."

     It's... sweet, of him. So kind that the gesture eases some of K'ver's anger. "Thanks," K'ver says, grudgingly. "You don't have to, though."

     "I am fully aware that I don't." He looks fleetingly amused. Then he pauses, shifts, looks away, then eyes K'ver. "While there, I mean to inquire about staying at Skyhold, temporarily, when Lotherinth flies. Perhaps... a permanent transfer."

     K'ver starts. "You mean you're not even going to try for her? Not _ever_? Why not?"

     "I have no wish to be Weyrleader. And..." He hesitates, then throws K'ver a look of such frank openness that K'ver draws back a little in surprise. "If C'len can win you, and if you _are_ willing to form a bond with him, I think... it will trouble me, to see what I might have had."

     If K'ver wasn't already sitting down, he would sit now. "Oh."

     F'ris' expression turns rueful. He steps close and draws slow, gentle fingers down K'ver's cheek. It doesn't feel like it used to. Once, a touch from F'ris could make K'ver shiver, sending him into hungry fantasies. Now it's just a touch. Only C'len makes him feel that way, now.

     C'len, who wants to be Weyrleader. Whom _the weyr_ wants K'ver joined to.

     F'ris draws away, then turns to go. K'ver sits where F'ris has left him, alone and silent for a long, aching while.

#

     There are lots of strangers in the weyr these days. Some are the relief riders sent over from other weyrs to bolster Kirkwall's strength until Lotherinth can replenish her AI ranks. Others are visiting bronze riders, come because C'len has thrown Lotherinth's next flight open. One of the lower caverns boys comes up to see K'ver, and hints broadly that maybe he should go meet with the latter group, because they're getting on people's nerves.

     K'ver wonders idly why the boy didn't give this task to C'len, since it would make more sense for the visitors to temporarily join the elite wing he is assembling amid the larger ranks, if they can -- any big dragon whose rider has mastered the Knight State. A defensive wall, should the Reapers try another mass assault. That C'len is including the bigger brown riders in this is something of a scandal, even though there are more Knights among the brown riders of Kirkwall than bronze. It's Not Done -- but C'len seems set to do a lot of Not Dones. It's increasingly clear that only he has the vision to lead a struggling weyr like Kirkwall. Competitors or not, this lot should be sucking up to its likely Weyrleader, not the Weyrwoman.

     But as K'ver walks into the cavernous lounge that the thirty or so newcomers have been sleeping and hanging out and apparently having the occasional fist-fight in, he's immediately appalled. The room's a mess -- uncleared food dishes, dirty leathers draped over the couches, bedrolls still unmade from where men have been sleeping on the floor. It's loud, too, with knots of men talking and joking, some throwing dice on a divan. A few mark K'ver as he comes in, and stand as is polite. Most barely notice.

     No wonder the lower caverns staff are pissed. This filth isn't their fault; K'ver knows good and well they would have given the riders instructions on where to put clothes for cleaning, and trays for pickup. And he knows there are children living on this level, as well as medical and other support staff, and all this noise is surely keeping them up at all hours.

     Setting his jaw, K'ver stands in the doorway until a circle of silence spreads from where he is. It doesn't take long, riders elbowing each other and whispering, _Is that him?_ and so on. "All right, then?" K'ver says, once the room's finally focused on him. "I'm K'ver, if you didn't know; gr --" Damn. " _Gold_ Lotherinth's rider. I hear you fellows need something to do."

     "Are you offering?" One of the riders, who clearly thinks he's witty, says. He's sitting on a chair that has been positioned atop a table for some ridiculous reason, like a throne. As K'ver stares and thinks _What the fuck_ , he grins and spreads his arms to make a joke of it. The other riders laugh.

     It isn't a joke, and it isn't fucking funny, and K'ver sets his jaw. "This how you want to introduce yourself to a potential new weyr?" he asks, and he doesn't mean to let his voice get so sharp, but it does. "You're here for a chance to run this place. If I were you I'd be trying to show that. You got anything to offer Kirkwall besides new ways to annoy the lower caverns staff, and stupid fuck jokes?"

     It's cruder and more blunt than they were expecting, he can see. Some of them, especially the younger ones, look chastened. Well, they should, because K'ver shouldn't have had to say this to them. Some of the older ones nod agreement with him; he marks them as maybe being worth something. His jokester, though, and a few of the ones clustered near that one, fall into sullen, resentful silence.

     K'ver shakes his head. "Any of you want to try showing what you've got, speak up now," he says. "We've got Reaperfall tomorrow, and we're still short-strength. If you can Knight and follow orders, you can join Acting Weyrleader C'len's special SPECTRE wing, and try to keep up. If you can't Knight -- " He pauses, lets that pause linger just a breath, lets that pause convey his contempt for a bronze rider who would dare try for a weyrleadership without that crucial ability. "Well, I suppose I can still put you to use. We don't have a queens' wing here yet, and Lotherinth and I could use some backup. Both assignments mean drilling for the rest of the day, so that we don't trip over your dragons' dicks tomorrow. Raise your hands and step forward so I can suss you out."

     There's a mass look of consternation, since K'ver has basically insulted them into acting like the elite dragonriders they claim to be, but then most of them start to shuffle forward. The loudmouths don't move. "And what if we can't follow orders?" yells the jokester, over the milling heads. He's not smiling this time.

     K'ver eyes him for a moment. "Then you might as well go home," he says. The room goes silent. The jokester's jaw tightens in fury. K'ver shrugs. They might not want to hear it, but he's speaking nothing but the truth. "Kirkwall's got a strong weyrmind. It knows what it wants. If you can't take orders, it _won't_ bloody want you."

     Jokester's upper lip curls. "Weyrleaders _give_ orders."

     "Good ones know that the hub comes first, though," says another rider. He's huge, is the first thing K'ver notes, a monster of a fellow with big shoulders and a big belly and scars down one side of his face and through one eye. The eyepatch makes him extra intimidating. He stares down the jokester, who suddenly looks like he's rethinking his disrespect. "Reapers come at a weyr that's not fighting with shared tactics and parallel reaction processing, they can smell it. Easy as pie then for their cyberwarfare suites to figure out paths to the ground through the net. Then people die, and for what? Because _you_ want to be selfish."

     There are murmurs of agreement from the riders who have moved to join K'ver. And there are more of them now than there are of Jokester's crew. K'ver feels their minds hooking into his, responding to his will, and it's a weird feeling. Hubbing for bronze riders isn't like hubbing for the lower ranks. Bronzes are so damned prickly. But they yield to him, and that's what matters.

     K'ver starts speaking to his new riders, learning their names, telling them to join his wing or C'len's. After a few more minutes of aloofness, and that probably just to save face, Jokester and his bunch get up and come over to get assignments too.

#

     C'len messages him an apology that night, through the weyr hub. "I cannot join you tonight, alas, because the _absolute rabble_ you sent me have taken the whole day to drill into usefulness, and I must rest if I'm to be any good tomorrow. Egg of the Maker, how I would love to rest in your arms... but if I did, I doubt it would be _rest_."

     The impulse residue that comes along with this message is quintessential C'len: shy tenderness, hungry raw lust, regret, adoration, longing. A brushing touch upon K'ver's lips. A graze of fingers along his arms. The weight of a warm body that should be near, sadly far away.

     K'ver, lying in his bed as he receives this, bites his lip and then cannot help putting hands down under the covers. They are C'len's hands, stroking his skin. That's C'len's mouth, gliding wet and relentless along the shaft of his cock. C'len's weight holding K'ver's hips in place, not letting him pull away when the orgasm comes hard on him, because K'ver thinks to be polite but C'len is not interested in _polite_ lovemaking. C'len's soft chuckle echoing in his ears as K'ver twitches in the aftermath, biting the duvet and trying to blink the stars from his eyes.

     K'ver can't manage a message back. Can't think of anything to say, plus he fears it will carry too much of his frustration, his loneliness, his need with it. And worse, he's afraid that it will carry his doubt -- because he misses C'len, and should he? Does he really? Or is that just... influence?

     C'len does not deserve his doubts. Not before a 'fall, anyway. With a sigh, K'ver rolls over and sleeps.

#

     There is Reaperfall the next day. K'ver hates that he can no longer give Lotherinth eezo, lest it interfere with her ability to write new persona code. Still, they are firmly bound as dragon and rider, and it is easy enough for them to assume the Knight State and annihilate their enemies that way. The add-on bronze riders do an adequate job backing him up, so K'ver upgrades a few of them in his estimation from "complete shit" to "might eventually not be a waste of skin." C'len holds the hub, with K'ver assisting by gathering the strength of the support wings -- the browns and greens and blues as well as his companion bronzes -- and feeding these to C'len while C'len manages the heavyweight dragons and overall strategy. It's almost like old times.

     Except. At the end of it, when they dismantle the linkages, C'len lingers a moment longer than the rest, and then his thoughts caress K'ver's mind in a wordless farewell so tender that K'ver's eyes sting. Then he's gone. No one's ever touched K'ver like that, in the flesh or the _between_ of thought. For the first time in days he stops thinking about what F'ris has said, instead folding himself 'round this strange private gift and savoring it and finding that he very much likes it. He's still warm with it once Lotherinth lands near the lower caverns Forward Operating Base so that K'ver can get a report about any possible infestations. He doesn't see two other bronze dragons land nearby -- not members of his impromptu wing, whom he's already dismissed. Or rather, K'ver sees, but he doesn't pay any attention to them, since they're Kirkwallers. Probably just riders checking on friends or family in the ground ranks. It doesn't occur to him that there might be anything more to it until he finally notices them following him around the FOB.

     He stops and turns to face them, frowning because they've taken his mind off C'len. One of them he knows, though not well: M'tin, rider of bronze Agath. The other is a younger rider, a rookie not long out of the weyrling caverns, though K'ver reckons she's been assigned M'tin as a mentor. She watches K'ver with a steady, unblinking gaze, as her young bronze watches Lotherinth. Stupid arse; she's letting herself get caught up in her dragon's reaction to a proddy queen. It happens, and she'll learn, but maybe K'ver will help her along that path to maturation with his fists, if she doesn't quit staring soon.

     "Your pardon, Weyrwoman," says M'tin. He says it with a little smile that immediately makes K'ver's hackles rise. He doesn't mind being called a woman -- it's a title of honor, kept regardless of the gender of the rider because centuries of dragonriding women made it honorable -- but he hates the way some of the riders smirk when they say it. Like it's not an honor to _them_. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

     "You're not," K'ver says, making his tone flat so M'tin will know he's not _capable_ of disturbing K'ver. "But I'm busy, like we all should be post-fall. Something I can do for you? That your wingleader can't?" Because M'tin's been flying in C'len's wing, and there's really no reason for M'tin to be bothering him right now.

     "Oh, no, no. It's only -- I didn't know whether C'len remembered it was customary for the Weyrwoman to have an escort any time she goes among the un-dragoned. Perhaps you didn't know, either. Seeing as you were only elevated to the rank lately." M'tin's smile is peaceable, polite. No good reason for K'ver to take exception. He bristles, anyway.

     "I didn't," K'ver says, bluntly. No point in pretending otherwise. "But pretty sure I don't need a bloody escort among _weyrfolk_. Thanks." He adds the last as an afterthought.

     M'tin clears his throat. "It isn't purely for _your_ protection, Weyrwoman. With your gold in her current state -- " He gestures at Lotherinth, like K'ver hasn't _noticed_. "The escort's duty is also to see that no one, ah, approaches you in an inappropriate fashion, and perhaps sets her off prematurely. You see?"

     K'ver puts his hands on his hips. M'tin's gaze flickers at this, down and up his body so fast that it might be a mistake, but K'ver knows he cuts a sharp figure in the heavy wherhide trousers and thick riding jacket. The girl is less circumspect; she licks her lips and her breath quickens, and her young bronze croons softly at Lotherinth, hoping for the queen's attention. Lotherinth is ignoring him. It's almost funny, except that M'tin is one of the bronze riders who's never paid attention to K'ver before, because he wouldn't let his bronze fly greens. Thought they were beneath him. That M'tin finds K'ver worth eyeballing, now, is not flattering at all.

     "I see," K'ver says. "I think you need to go back up to rejoin your wing, Rider M'tin."

     "K'ver -- "

     "That's _Weyrwoman_ K'ver," K'ver snaps.

     M'tin accepts the reprimand with grace, and an apologetic nod. That's worse. Humoring the proddy rider. K'ver feels his jaw starting to tighten. "Weyrwoman K'ver. As I explained -- "

     "I heard your explanation. You think a bunch of weyrfolk who just went through a sodding _battle_ are going to pull me into a closet and polish my knob? Have you been overclocking on red lyrium sand or something?"

     M'tin winces, then steps closer. "Both you and your dragon are projecting on a wide bandwidth, Weyrwoman. Enough of the lower caverns-folk have latent connectivity talents that they might be... affected."

     K'ver laughs. He can't help it. "I was a fucking _green rider_ , M'tin. Don't lecture me about latent effects. People have always been a little itchy around me, since bloody puberty. Think I don't know how to handle that? Get the sod out of here."

     M'tin takes another step closer -- and suddenly it's wrong somehow. There's just something about the way he's leaning in. He's maybe an inch taller than K'ver, shoulders only a little broader, but suddenly he's _using it_ , and K'ver doesn't like it one sharding bit. He catches K'ver's elbow, and K'ver automatically tries to yank free. M'tin _holds on_ , his grip tightening like a vise. His breath stinks. He's staring at K'ver, looking into K'ver's eyes without blinking, and actually trying to pull K'ver closer. And -- fuck -- he's strong enough that it's working. They're in the middle of the FOB, but no one's looking, because everyone's more concerned about the wounded and infestations and getting the leftover sacks of eezo put away. If K'ver wants to get loose, he's going to have to make a scene, and distract people from more important things.

     "The fuck are you -- You reeking eezo shitwaffle, how -- "

     "You are overwrought, Weyrwoman," M'tin says. His voice is low. Maker, is he actually trying to be seductive? Shit, and now his other hand is on K'ver's waist. K'ver tries to step back, furious now, but M'tin moves with him, leans close. He's actually going for a kiss! And -- oh fucking Shell of the Maker-Dragon, this _bastard_ is actually rubbing _his dick_ against K'ver's hip. "Let me help you."

     Lotherinth growls, warningly. K'ver shoves at M'tin, revolted by that cock-press, wanting the fucker's breath out of his face. _"Get the fuck off me right the fuck now."_

     M'tin blinks. His hand loosens a little, and that's enough for K'ver to finally yank loose. In the same movement he reaches up behind himself, materializing his omni-sword and grasping the hilt, though he doesn't draw it. M'tin's eyes widen a little.

     "You want your dragon to live, I'm thinking," K'ver says. He's shaking. It's fear as well as anger, if he's honest with himself, and he usually tries to be. "Yeah? That means you don't ever want to come near me again."

     M'tin abruptly scowls. "You've been with him, then."

     "What?"

     "C'len. He's _had_ you." M'tin turns and spits off to the side. "Figures, green slut that you are. Maker's Shell! The dragon may be gilded but the man's the same, isn't he? Did you wait ten minutes after the upgrade before getting on your knees?"

     It's cold all of a sudden. Even through the heavy jacket, even here on the ground. K'ver stares at him, cold with shock. _Slut?_ Then he understands. Oh, it's awful. The things that nobody cares about in a green rider, the things that are _good_ for a green dragon -- the comfort with sex, the lack of inhibitions. They fucking matter, for queenriders. For the sake of fairness, the bronze riders have been expecting K'ver to keep himself apart from them, _uninfluenced_. No. Free to be influenced by _any_ of them, not just C'len. That's what M'tin's been doing: getting close to him, breathing on him, touching him, trying to get him thinking about sex. Even getting on K'ver's last nerve and pissing him off -- that's M'tin's way of making K'ver focus on him. Working the spell.

     Cold. And then hot.

     "Yeah, I'm a slut," K'ver says. His voice is even, low. He's too angry to shout. That's good. Makes him sound level-headed. "I like fucking. _Love_ it, actually. The rhythm. The sound. I like holding a nice fat dick in my hands. I like riding one, though I'd rather get ridden. I love letting someone else take control, if he knows what he's doing..." He hisses in pleasure, shuts his eyes, and thinks about that night with C'len, deliberately. "A lot of guys suck at fucking. Too much force, not enough finesse. C'len, though -- yeah. He's perfect."

     Letting out that breath, K'ver takes his hand off the omni-blade; it vanishes. He walks forward, slow. Gets up close, in M'tin's face. M'tin takes a step back, disgust warring with discomfort in his expression. "I like doing the fucking, too," K'ver continues. "Not too bad at laying the pipe myself, or so others have said. Doesn't have to be guys, or weyrfolk; I like it all, long as everybody involved has fun. Two or three at a time, even."

     He leans in really close, now. "But I'd fuck a _Reaper_ before I ever let you have a lick."

     Lotherinth hisses in echo, low and warning. Agath utters an anxious croon. The bronze girl is goggling, no longer hungry-looking, just alarmed. M'tin's jaw tightens. He's trying to hold his ground, K'ver senses, and failing.

     "When the dragons fly," M'tin says, lifting his chin with a little jerk, "you won't have a choice about it. If it's me, I'll be certain to give you a ride to remember."

     "If it's you, you'll be dead before your dragon gets it in."

     M'tin stares at him, appalled by his crudeness and -- K'ver can tell -- horrified to realize that K'ver is completely serious. C'len might prefer fists to blades, and seek to avoid dragons' deaths, but K'ver has no such compunctions. Dragons who pick riders as fucked-up as M'tin don't get to breed, as far as K'ver's concerned. If they try, they deserve to die, for the good of the species. Agath makes another anxious sound. M'tin's brow flickers as he reacts to something his dragon has said. Then he backs up. "We shall see."

     Lotherinth chooses that moment to whip her head around and stare, nose-to-nose, at the young bronze beholden to the girl. The young one utters a startled blat of alarm and stumbles back a few steps, nearly backing into a crew of caverns-folk pushing a crate of numbweed nanites. They start yelling. The girl gasps and runs to console her bronze, giving Lotherinth a wide berth as she does so because Lotherinth's eyes are red, red, red. She turns those eyes on Agath, who immediately turns his gaze away in deference.

     K'ver gives M'tin one last glare, then stalks over to Lotherinth to mount back up.

     <<Home?>> she asks.

     K'ver pets her neck. "Damn straight."

     She launches herself and curves toward the weyr. The cool air helps to clear some of the pounding rage in his head, and belatedly it occurs to K'ver that he should try to calm down for Lotherinth's sake if not his own. A rider's anger can set off a dragon's anger, and that can trigger a dragon's mating sequence prematurely. In a queen, that means a small, weak clutch of newly-generated AIs.

     <<I am not angry,>> Lotherinth says. <<Not anymore. I will protect you.>>

     He shouldn't say it, shouldn't think it, but he does. "Can't protect me when you fly, love. I'm on my own, there."

     She rumbles beneath him, unhappily. <<I don't want you doing anything you don't want to.>> They have both said this to each other, many times.

     "I won't. I'll make a battle of it again if I have to." And start by cutting off M'tin's head.

     More unhappiness. <<It has been long since you _shared_ my mating. >>

     "Yeah, I know, but..." He sighed. "Shit. I'm sorry, Loth."

     <<You like C'len. He mates well.>>

     K'ver almost laughs. "Yeah, he does. I just... I don't know what to think, anymore." F'ris had been right. Egg of the Maker-Dragon, he'd been right. K'ver had just witnessed the way bronze riders worked over queenriders, when they could. M'tin had been an arse and too pushy, but what if someone more subtle tries it? Someone with half an ounce of sense, like C'len.

     A long silence, during which the steady beat of Lotherinth's wings slows K'ver's pulse. Then -- softly, anxiously, Lotherinth says, <<I will try not to fly, if you want.>>

     Oh, no. "No," K'ver says sharply. "No, love -- we swore, didn't we? Neither of us does anything we don't want. That includes holding back from things you _do_ want. Fly, because it's glorious when you do. I want you to love every sodding moment of it." He takes a deep breath. "I'll make it work for myself, too, somehow. Don't I always? I'll be fine."

     She says nothing more. K'ver suspects she is unconvinced. But then, so is he.

#

     K'ver's taken a bath and flung himself into the oversized bed and is trying desperately to stop thinking so he can sleep, when Lotherinth rumbles softly. <<Honnleath comes, with C'len.>>

     Fuck.

     He gets up and throws on a robe and heads down to the landing pad to watch as Honnleath strides into the hangar like he owns the place. Big, noble-looking bastard, Honnleath, with a perpetually upright posture and elegant, powerful proportions, like his rider. Who also walks like he owns the place, once he dismounts -- or like he owns K'ver, at least. C'len's taken the time to wash and put on fresh clothes, K'ver notes, which probably means he expects to be with K'ver again and didn't want to smell like hours of aggression-sweat and eezo smoke. How nice of him.

     He's lovely, though, isn't he? And as K'ver watches his long legs and the shift of his broad shoulders and sees the tender, half-apologetic smile on his lips -- because he has disturbed K'ver, and he feels bad about that, could he be more perfect? -- K'ver can't hold on to his suspicion. He _likes_ this man. He likes that C'len's eyes soften as he slows, as he lifts a hand to graze the backs of his fingers down K'ver's cheek. His face is full of everything K'ver has ever wanted in a weyrmate. He leans in and K'ver knows he shouldn't. Knows this will... _influence_ him, whatever. But Maker, he loves how C'len kisses him. A soft brush at first, but that's just the tease, enticing K'ver to open himself up. When he does, C'len feeds K'ver his tongue, slow regular thrusts of it, wet and sweet with whatever herbs C'len chewed before coming over, a little minty and tingly, and what would this tingly mouth feel like elsewhere on him? And meanwhile C'len's other hand is grazing its way down K'ver's arm, which makes him want to open his hand when C'len takes it. Now he'll pull K'ver to the couch, or upstairs. Right? Now he'll take what he thinks he's owed, what he thinks he _owns_. And Maker, is it such a terrible thing that K'ver wants to give it all to him?

     But C'len pulls back, with visible reluctance. He smiles. "How I have missed you this long, long day."

     It should be cheesy, but it's not. It should feel like flattery, but _it's not_. C'len means it. It's been barely three days since he was with K'ver, the whole while whispering things in his ear like _I did not know how I needed you before now_ and _You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen_ \-- and meaning every word of it. K'ver's had blokes telling him things like this for years. They always call him beautiful while they're on top of him. But C'len still feels it now, and it shows in his face, and K'ver just doesn't know what to _do_ with that.

     And -- does it go both ways, the animal attraction psychic bombardment thing? Will C'len still say things like this after Honnleath has flown Lotherinth? Will he be as loving when they're fucking in front of a room full of frustrated riders, with dragons' lust firing their blood? When that fire is spent and he's gotten what he wants -- the Weyrleadership, confirmed and definitive -- will he still need K'ver the way he says he does?

     K'ver shifts from foot to foot and looks away and tries not to fidget. C'len's sharp gaze misses nothing, though, and he sobers. "Honnleath says you have been troubled."

     He's still stroking K'ver's hair back from his temple. K'ver has to make himself turn away just so he can bloody think. He's not sure where to begin. He doesn't want to tattle on M'tin; he can handle his own problems. But he needs to vent the fear that has been gathering in him. "I didn't know bronze riders could, uh, push a proddy queen through the rider. I mean, I kind of knew, but..." There are always rumors. Confirming them through actual experience is a different matter.

     C'len's not stupid. He blinks, narrows eyes in suspicion, then inhales as he understands. But he sounds sad, not angry, when he says, "You believe I have done so."

     K'ver shrugs, awkwardly. "Is it true? You touching me, shagging me, telling me things... m-making me like you. Will it throw the flight, when Lotherinth rises? Give you a better chance?"

     "It may." C'len, perhaps understanding K'ver's fear, moves away and leans against the back of the couch, folding his arms. "There is certainly a correlation between the rider a Weyrwoman inclines toward, and the dragon her queen accepts as a mate. Personally I think it more a matter of love, and the dragons' intelligence, than anything else: Lotherinth wants you to share in her pleasure, and she knows you will do that best with someone you already desire." C'len shrugs. "There are those who think it more base than that, however. Some Weyrwomen hold themselves aloof from all contact, carnal or otherwise, for fear of influencing their dragons unduly. Some even expect Werywomen to be celibate, or at least monogamous once they have settled upon a lover, for that reason."

     K'ver bites his lip. "You expect that?" Maybe it's time for that talk after all.

     C'len hesitates, then lowers his gaze. "I... hope to win your devotion, yes. I know I should be more flexible, given that you were a green rider, and given that I have only begun to know you and cannot yet presume upon our relationship, but..." He spreads his hands. "I am who I am, just as you are."

     "I don't know if I want, uh, devotion." K'ver lifts his chin, just a little, bracing himself.

     C'len inclines his head. "I will continue to hope that I might someday change your feelings on the matter." He takes a deep breath. "But until then, I will have anything of you that you grant me. If I may."

     Shit. "Why do you have to be so sodding _good_?" K'ver glares at C'len in helpless frustration. "Everything would be so much easier if you were some kind of wanker!"

     C'len half-laughs. "I am glad to disappoint. But... K'ver." He hesitates again. "Did you not want me, that night we lay together? I thought that you did. I would not have touched you, otherwise. I would not have come here tonight."

     " _Yeah_ , I did want you." K'ver sighs and gets up and starts to pace. He can't keep still. Part of him wants to go over to C'len and demand kisses again, and touches, and more of that airy, rich voice saying beautiful things. Part of him wants to run into his apartment and barricade the door. "Maker, I want you _now_. I can't stop thinking about you. I, I have to fight not to connect to you every time I climb onto Lotherinth's back, did you know that? That's never happened before. What does that _mean_ , Cull?"

     C'len smiles. He pushes away from the desk and comes over to K'ver, reaching for his hands. When K'ver pulls back from this -- fucking _influence_ \-- he merely stops trying, though he does not move away. "It means," he says, "that you and I are united in purpose and intent. It is what _should_ exist, between a Weyrleader and his Weyrwoman, if the weyr is to thrive."

     K'ver stares at him, aching for that aborted touch, understanding what he's saying and wishing that he didn't. Because. "That means it's the weyr that's doing this, then," he says. "Pushing us together. _Making_ us become a, a thing, just like it remade Lotherinth."

     C'len sighs. "Perhaps."

     "Doesn't that bother you? Not being in full control of your own mind?"

     "No."

     "Why the shell _not_?"

     "Because I want you. I _want_ what the weyr wants. I care not for the how of it, only the outcome." K'ver blinks. C'len's expression is suddenly as hard-edged as it has been before every battle -- determined, implacable even in the face of unlikely odds. "And I will do what I must to win you, K'ver. If you do not trust me..." His jaw tightens. "Well. You barely know me. That is only fair. So I must earn your trust, and I will."

     That's it, for C'len. It's so simple. But K'ver folds his arms over the open V of the robe, chafing chilled arms. "Well, what if I don't trust myself?"

     That actually silences C'len for a moment. He takes a deep breath, then carefully, deliberately, takes a step back. "Then I must give you time, and room, to come to an understanding," he says. "I'll wait."

     K'ver wants to shout at him. "Loth's going to _fly_. Soon."

     "Then she flies." C'len salutes then, bowing over his fist, and turns to go. Lothering makes a soft anxious sound, and he glances up at her, saluting. "My regards to you, lady."

     <<K'ver needs you,>> Lotherinth says. It's clearly sent to both of them, because C'len actually stops, blinking. He glances back at K'ver, who stands there clutching the robe about himself and trying not to look as lost as he feels.

     C'len takes a deep breath. "When K'ver is ready for me, I am his."

     So weighted, those last three words. K'ver's hands clench. He can't help it.

     But C'len goes, because he must, and they both know it.

     When the beat of Honnleath's wings has faded into the night, K'ver stumbles over to Lotherinth and leans against her great shoulder while she folds a wing around him, crooning. His eyes hurt, and he doesn't know why.

#

     He's still there the next morning, curled against Lotherinth and snoring, when a horrifyingly familiar voice pulls him out of sleep. "Did you actually sleep up there, like a weyrling? Maker, things must be worse than F'ris said."

     Marian. Damn it.

     She looks the same as when he last saw her: tall, rangy, long-limbed, with a build that's perfect for riding and a face that's probably easy enough on other men's eyes, if their tastes run to strength and attitude and high-handedness. Well, one change: there's a red scar across the bridge of her nose, which makes K'ver inhale because only Reaper-fire leaves a mark like that, and it means she's had at least one too-close encounter. But she's alive, which he guesses is what matters. She's alone in his weyr. A quick scan of the weyr-hub brings back no taste of strange queen, which means she's here without Amelth.

     "The fuck are you doing here?" he demands, using the angle to surreptitiously wipe at his face for possible tear-tracks.

     "Your F'ris. Are you sure you don't want that one, Brother? Lanky, lovely, and so broody! I'd have thought you'd get along famously. He said he's thinking about coming to Skyhold permanently, and I say _come on_."

     It's so _her_ that K'ver can't help laughing. He clambers out of the cage of Lotherinth's wing and comes down to the couch level, running a hand over his unavoidably messy hair. She's not going to think much of him. She never does. Doesn't mean he can't try and muster some dignity for his own sake.

     "I broke him in for you," he says. "Don't you break him, though. He's a good man."

     It's an effort not to push this further, take it to the next (lower) level, and dig at her about other people she's broken, the ruins of their family. He doesn't because she's come here for him, actually come to help him, and that means something. He can be a grown up if she can be.

     It's like she hears that effort. A smile spreads across her face, genuine and -- wonder of wonders -- actually glad to see him. "Weyrwoman K'ver! I didn't believe it when they told me, but there's Lotherinth, gold as my Amelth's egg. And she's what, a good ten paces longer, now, if I make my guess? Maker, I think she might be bigger than my Amelth."

     No better way to butter up a dragonrider than to speak well of his dragon. K'ver rubs the back of his head, privately pleased. "Yeah. It's a pain in some ways. Her wings are a different shape; she's not as fast as she used to be, and tricksy maneuvers we used to do in battle don't work anymore. We're having to learn how to fly all over again, in some ways. But everybody tells me it's good that she's so big. It'll help with clutching, or something, when the time comes."

     Which reminds him of the imminent flight, and C'len, and everything, and he falters silent before her, helpless and excoriated.

     Marian sobers as well. "Ah, you're making a mess of it, aren't you?"

     "Not my bloody fault," he snaps. Reacting to her needling is old habit. "Not like there's a sodding manual anywhere for what to do when your green suddenly turns into a gold, or when shagging a bloke you like suddenly makes you a _slut_ , or..." He flings out his arms. " _Any_ of this shit."

     Her eyebrows rise. "This C'len's the one you shagged, then? That's the rumor, that you and he are a thing."

     K'ver shrugs helplessly. No one ever bothered making up rumors about him before, either. His stomach growls, loud enough to interrupt the conversation. Marian sighs and moves to drape an arm around his shoulders, steering him toward his apartment. That's new, her affection, but he finds himself surprisingly glad for it. "Go do whatever you must to become presentable," she says. "I imagine that will take a while. I'll see if your lower caverns boys can't come up with decent klah and a tray of breakfast by the time you're done. And then we'll talk. Yeah?"

     "Yeah."

     So he showers, and there's food when he comes back clad in his nicer leathers and that fatigue-vest he knows C'len likes so much because it shows off his arms. He sees her amused, impressed look and knows he's achieved "presentable" by her standards. Win.

     They catch up. She's here alone because her Amelth is locked to a nesting server, where she's recently laid a clutch of still-compiling AIs. Soon the little ones will download into their light-shells, and then hatch into corporeality, to be paired with the human minds they need for completion. Until then, Amelth is their only protection against Reaper cyberattacks or any other threats. The sire-persona is a bronze by the name of Justith, beholden to rider A'ders; K'ver makes a face at this, because he remembers the man and can't stand him. Marian rolls her eyes back. Marian's still only second weyrwoman at Skyhold, where a woman by the name of Lavellan is first, but they get along well enough. Things are well for her, otherwise.

     Then it's K'ver's turn, and everything sounds fine until he mentions Loth's last flight as a green dragon. Even that's fine, but he falters as he tells her about looking up to the balcony above where he and the riders were fighting, to see a strange bronze rider staring at him. He tries to be nonchalant about that moment. That feeling. That instant _awareness_ that C'len was special and whatever developed between them would be special too. It was something as profound and powerful for him as Impression, and he cannot quite keep that from Marian. She knows him too well.

     "You're in love with him," she says, softly.

     "I don't know."

     "You _are_. Look at you." She, half stretched out along the couch cushions where he and C'len made love, grins.

     He blushes despite himself. Doing a lot of that lately. "All right, maybe. But -- It's not real, is it? If bronze riders can do this to queen riders. If the weyr can do this to either of us. F'ris said C'len's manipulating me. Other bronze riders have tried it, too. I can't..." He sighs, props his elbows on his knees, runs his fingers through his hair. "Fuck. It was so much _easier_ when I was a green! I didn't have to worry about people trying to use me, or at least not without me wanting to use them back so it was fine. 'The weyr' didn't give a shit what I did, and... and..."

     "Stop. It." It's her Father Voice, and it jerks him right out of his spiral of self-pity. Like she meant it to. When he looks up, she's glaring at him. Then she nods toward Lotherinth, and he starts and turns to stare at the sleeping dragon -- who has curled in on herself, and turned an unpleasant shade of sickly, almost pastel yellow. He catches his breath in horror.

     "You're inhibiting her," Marian says. Her voice is softer than her face. "Your fear. They look like that when the AI production cycle starts to go wrong in them. Maybe it's just subconscious, but she's trying to take herself out of write mode. Trying not to fly. For you."

     "No -- " K'ver lurches to his feet to go to Lotherith.

     "Sit down."

     "My fucking dragon -- "

     "Sit down!" She snaps the words like a whip. He sets his jaw, but sits. Then she sighs to herself. "Not your fault. No proper queens here for years, and you've actually been listening to bronze riders. As if _they_ know anything about being a queen."

     K'ver glares back at her. "Tell me it's not true, then, that bronze riders can get an advantage by working up a queen's rider!"

     "Carver, Carver." She does this, slips out of honorifics, when she's really done with him. He bristles, but then she winces and catches herself. " _K'ver_. You've more than earned that. I'm sorry."

     That's better. He takes a deep breath. "C'len said it was true."

     "Oh, it's true. But do you know what it means, little brother? _You bloody own them_." K'ver stares at her, confused and not a little alarmed. She's smiling now -- a feral, ferocious little smile that he's only ever seen on her lips during sparring matches, or a real fight. "Think about it, will you? Queens _rule_ dragon flights. The bronzes compete for her affection, certainly, and some will be the sort who cheat and backstab to get it, but in the end the bronzes _serve_ her. As Weyrwoman, you're the heart of this weyr, just as the Weyrleader is its hand. The bronzes can push you, sure, but you can _control_ them, by will alone. If your will is strong enough."

     K'ver laughs. "What, like sodding mind control?"

     " _Exactly like sodding mind control_."

     That's.

     Huh.

     In spite of himself, K'ver suddenly recalls that day in the lower caverns. Walking into a room full of disappointing, rowdy bronze riders and needing them to become something more than wastrels. _They had._ Even M'tin -- he had been stronger than K'ver, but he'd let go once K'ver got pissed enough. Looked _surprised_ , too, like he hadn't meant to, but K'ver had said it, and he'd done it. K'ver inhales as he realizes: and fucking M'tin _knew_ what was happening. Knew that K'ver, still a green rider in his head, wouldn't understand what queen riders could do. M'tin had been trying to get in early, push K'ver before K'ver learned to push back. He'd been making a bid not just to control the outcome of the flight, but _K'ver_.

     K'ver shakes his head, wondering. He's still not sure he believes it. "But Meredith never -- "

     "Didn't she?" Marian sits back, with a sour look on her face. "You think I wanted to leave Kirkwall when we'd only just made a place here? Leave _you_ , K'ver? You were beneath her notice, at least at first. She concentrated on me until I thought I _had_ to leave, to protect you."

     "Maker."

     Marian nods, bleakly. "It's something we're not supposed to do, except for the good of the weyr, but Meredith went beyond that. It's a privilege, but also a responsibility, a trust, and she broke it. That's why, when the other weyrleaders of Pern wanted Kirkwall fixed, they knew it would take an outsider. They sent C'len, hoping he'd be strong enough to resist her until her dragon flew, hoping he'd call to the part of the weyr that wanted change and draw strength from that. And Maker but he _did_." She grins at K'ver.

     He doesn't know what to think. Then he does, and it hurts. "The weyr wanted him, though," he says. "What _I_ want has nothing to do with it.

     "K'ver. _You are the weyr, now._ "

     "What?"

     She sits forward. "That's why your Lotherinth became the new queen. The weyrmind is aligned with _your_ will, for as long as you're attuned to what's best for it. You made _yourself_ a queenrider, partly because you wanted to be with him. The weyr wants what _you_ want."

     But that's worse, isn't it? "Shit, Marian, does that mean I'm _making_ Cull want me?"

     She sighs in familiar exasperation. "You insist on making this a terrible thing. A _human_ thing. But it isn't. _We_ aren't human anymore, not completely. Not once our other souls find us." She glances at Lotherinth. K'ver does too, because the sight of her soothes him a little. And is her color better? That soothes him more. "You've seen fire lizards, K'ver. They're what the original dragons were engineered from, what our dragons' artificial minds are designed to emulate. What happens when a bronze fire lizard doesn't like or want the queen of his flight?"

     "He bugs out, finds another flight. Offers that queen gifts 'til hopefully she decides she likes him, and..." Oh.

     Marian nods at the "oh" on his face. "Maybe you are making this C'len yours," she says. "But if you are, he knows it's happening. He's known all along, I'll wager, but he _chooses_ to stay in this weyr. Your weyr. He chooses to be yours."

     K'ver stares at her, and feels a great awful tension loosen 'round his heart.

     She glances beyond him, and he knows what he'll see before he turns by the way she smiles: Lotherinth's color is back to where it should be, deep and rich and almost brassy, almost glowing.

     No. Not _almost_ glowing. K'ver catches his breath as Lotherinth stirs and uncurls, and he knows what's happening even as he touches her mind and feels the fierce, fiery _demand_ in her thoughts. She turns to look at him, though, with her whirling red eyes.

     <<Do you know what you want?>> she asks.

     He makes himself think about it -- really think. Making sure. Yet a slow smile spreads across his face because the first thing he thinks of is _C'len_.

     "Yeah," he says back to her. "Go get him for us, baby."

     She hums in pleasure, jutting her head forward for his scratches, but only for a moment. Then she turns and slinks toward the mouth of the weyr. K'ver glances back at Marian; Marian's settled where she is, grinning. "Go on," she says. "F'ris is already on his way to take me back to Skyhold. I don't really want to see my little brother getting laid." She winks. "However lovely it's sure to be. Have fun, K'ver."

     It's just what he needs to hear. " _Yeah."_ He grins and then runs after Lotherinth.

     She's already in the feeding grounds by the time he gets to the weyr bowl, her teeth clamped into one of the power conduits that dot the field. He doesn't have to tell her only to feed from the higher wavelengths, so that she won't be weighed down by any soggy UV or, perish the thought, microwaves. To fly high and fast and far, she needs gamma rays, graviton pulses, mass effect fields, or nothing. She's already sucking only that from the conduit, though, because after so many flights together, they both know how this goes. The bronzes are gathering quickly, landing to drop off riders and then take their places on perches around the bowl. Their eyes glow as they watch her, bodies taut.

     K'ver looks around for a familiar bronze, then scowls when he doesn't see that upright, proud silhouette anywhere. _C'len, where the sod are you?_

     The bronze riders have gathered on one of the scenic ledges. It's a good spot for a view of the bowl, and a good gathering point for a large group. Has a railing, so nobody will fall to the floor of the bowl and die if they get too caught up in the flight. Has lots of couches, which is handy for all sorts of business. They all turn as K'ver arrives. One of the Kirkwallers, emerald-eyed S'bastian, takes in the way K'ver's walking and then grins. "I take it we won't be needing to move the furniture for a sparring ring, this time?"

     K'ver smiles languidly, moves to sit on a couch, and drapes his arms across the back of it. He doesn't cross his legs this time, instead propping one foot on a nearby divan so that he can spread his legs in as vulgar and wide a fashion as possible. Many sets of eyes go to his crotch; he almost shivers beneath this visual caress. "No. Not this time."

     There is a collective low sound from the riders, not quite a moan of lust. K'ver inhales and revels in it, letting his mind unspool, taking in the rising tension of the weyr. _His_ weyr. Yeah.

     Ah, and here's his man. There is a thunderclap of sound as Honnleath drops out of a mass effect corridor, roaring and backwinging down from FTL speed. The roar isn't necessary; Honnleath's just feeling his pepper. It's dramatic enough that Lotherinth actually stops feeding long enough to look at him; K'ver feels her amusement before she resumes. The bronze drops like a stone and doesn't so much land as bounce, but he and C'len are so in tune that it goes perfectly. C'len slips off the instant Honnleath touches the ground, and then the bronze is back up to grab himself a perch along the uppermost rim, shouldering aside M'tin's Agath with a hiss.

     K'ver sees a few disappointed faces among the gathered riders, now that C'len's arrived. Most of them aren't stupid. They know how this kind of story ends. Still, they part as C'len tops the steps and comes toward them, until he stands facing K'ver across a gulf of perhaps three meters. He's breathing hard, cheeks reddened by what must have been a hard flight along the relays, and although his expression is its usual stern, perpetually tired handsomeness... there's something hot in his eyes.

     K'ver likes it. He likes it a lot. "Glad you could join us."

     "A last-minute meeting with one of the Lords Holder," C'len replies. His hand, the one that has the omni-tool embedded, is held out, fingers splayed, ready to activate. "Do we fight today?"

     He has promised to fight at K'ver's side, if K'ver needs that. Such a fine gift to bring in courting. It makes K'ver feel warm all over. _His_ weyr. _His_ Weyrleader. If C'len is worthy.

     <<You know he is,>> Lotherinth says, finally lifting her head and licking her lips. She's blazing orange now, her light-skin glittering as the write protections unlock. Her thoughts are just as bright. <<Why delay? I want to feel his soft skin under your hands.>>

     K'ver laughs at her greed. "Not 'til you can join us, love," he says aloud. He knows the other riders will suspect what Lotherinth has said. Let them seethe over it. He doesn't care what they think. "Let's have a bit of the wind under your vanes, first. That's the best foreplay in the world."

     She throws back a sharp-toothed grin at him, which turns into a roar of challenge at all the dragons. They tense, hunch, ready. When she leaps, so fast, they're on her trail in an instant, Honnleath first after buffeting Agath in the head. Agath falls off the ledge and tries to scramble up, but it's hopeless; by the time he recovers and gets into the air, Lotherinth and the bronzes who actually have a chance are already small with distance.

     K'ver throws a lazy, cruel smile at M'tin, who stares back at him in thwarted anguish. Then K'ver dismisses him from his attention. Dismisses everyone, but his beautiful golden girl.

     It's the purest sharing of a dragon's mind short of the Knight State -- and that is all aggression, humanoid movement, force and violence. When Lotherinth flies, though, K'ver feels himself slip through air as if between silken sheets. The molecules of gas caress his substance, the clouds paint his vision, the sun is a sly and close lover, warming his back. She bugles for the sheer joy of hearing her voice, spins for the love of her own gyroscopic maneuverability, and it is these things that her body begins to write into the frameworks that will become her children. This is what a dragon should be: might and skill, but also joy.

     (She is glad, so glad, that K'ver is with her. He is glad, so glad, that this time he doesn't have to fight, and can be with her. Perhaps, with C'len, he can be with her like this every time, from now on? <<Yes, that would be lovely!>>)

     What do male dragons feel, when they fly? What gifts do they write from sky and struggle, for their children? Lotherinth has never considered these things before, because as a green it wasn't a question she needed or cared to ask. Now, though, she glances back under one wing, and considers the bronzes streaking after her. It makes her rumble in amusement. There are six still behind her, the others having fallen off in exhaustion, but Honnleath is the only one keeping up easily. Starkhaventh is close on his heels, looking determined and plainly willing to fly himself to death for her. That is a lovely, romantic thing, but Honnleath's raw strength draws her eye more. Oh -- has he been _training_ for this? Did he fly on his first journey to Kirkwall, straightaway rather than relaying in, just to strengthen himself for this? A dragon with forethought! He could even catch up, she sees. He has let her fly farther because she so clearly enjoys it.

     All good things to give her potential children: initiative, graciousness, understated yet unmistakeable strength. The individual core matrices within her have formed nicely -- and so many of them! A good strong clutch, wanting only their other half of code to become alive. Well, she has flown high and far enough. Now she may take her reward.

     She curves over onto her back, shutting her eyes and basking in the sunlight; it is an invitation, of course. Honnleath growls and surges forward, and she feels his shadow move over her before --

     K'ver gasps and sways as he snaps back into puny, stationary human awareness. Most of him, anyway; the rest is still streaking through the sky, purring now as she lets Honnleath stroke her and twine around her, angling carefully so that his wings can bear them both for awhile -- But here, down on earth, it is C'len who holds K'ver steady, with hands tight on his biceps. K'ver laughs, trying to move closer to him so they can join their dragons in delight, but C'len squeezes his arms hard enough to hurt. "Do you know what you want?" he asks K'ver. His voice is harsh, his eyes wild and glimmering orange. K'ver imagines a hint of sharp teeth when he speaks.

     Words are so difficult. K'ver groans in frustration and tries again to touch him, pull him in. C'len utters a sound like a snarl and keeps him at arms' length. His hands shake as he does this, though. The need is tearing through him, pounding at his mind, and it's taking everything he has to retain his reason. It makes no sense. K'ver is here and his. Why does he resist?

     There is a kernel of reason still left in K'ver, though, and it prompts him to remember: C'len thinks K'ver doesn't trust him. And -- _What if I don't trust myself?_

     But all the fear is gone, now. Nothing save love remains.

     "I want you," he makes himself say -- aloud, heard and witnessed by all their fellow riders, making a bond and contract of it. It's so hard to speak, to think, but this much is clear within him. "I've always wanted you. Please, C'len."

     C'len shuts his eyes for an instant, swaying as well. (Somewhere, above a cloud, Honnleath bugles in joy and triumph, and submission.) Then C'len is on him, yanking at his clothes as fast as K'ver can raise his arms, snarling in frustration when K'ver has to unfasten his belt for him. (He's already grinding himself against K'ver. It's not like that time with M'tin; K'ver breathes _ahhh_ at the heavy press of C'len's cock and shifts so that that press finds his own.) All around them the ring of riders has fallen apart. Hungry, frustrated riders fall upon each other in their own tangles of limbs and torn clothing and pleading, or they crouch nearby to watch C'len and K'ver, their eyes gleaming, their hands working. Then K'ver's naked somehow, kicking off his boots and fumbling with his omni-tool to bring up a dark-energy sheath around them both that eliminates friction. He barely gets it in place before C'len seizes him and lifts him up. K'ver holds on, startled and delighted, but C'len's really doing it, and he's really that strong, and then C'len is sliding, gliding, so deep into him. (Lotherinth has arched herself just so, the wind pressing up into her wings and Honnleath pressing down on her back. Oh, he is marvelous. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.) It's such a sweet, sudden shock, completion after such long craving, that K'ver cries out. C'len shudders, fighting the demand to _fuck, fuck, fuck,_ that must be raging within him because that's what the bloody dragons are doing. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he mumbles, and he actually tries to go slower, give K'ver the time to adjust that he didn't before. But K'ver is open and ready; have they not flown together this far? His cry was delight. He teaches this to C'len by twining arms and legs around him and pushing back, taking him in, fucking himself with that beautiful cock.

     C'len _yells_. K'ver laughs. It feels so good. The world blurs (the sky blurs) and then K'ver is on the couch, on his back, writhing and begging for more with wordless croons. C'len has levered his legs apart and back so that he can have room to work, and _Maker_ is he working hard, fast, deep, it's the best dicking K'ver's ever had and _oh Loth, oh baby, can you feel this?_ It feels like a dragon's cock going into him, which ought to feel wrong but doesn't. It ought to hurt but it doesn't. He ought to be losing himself in it, but instead he knows himself loved, in this welter of pleasure.

     <<!!!>> Loth sends back.

     Oh, yes. It's so good, so good, oh Maker it's just so -- fucking -- _good_ \--

     C'len's holding him down, hand tight-clasped on K'ver's wrists, when Lotherinth lets him return. Problem with riding a girl-dragon: multiple orgasms. Delicious... except his paltry man-body can't take them. Usually K'ver just has to grit his teeth through the oversensitive aftermath, while his partner keeps fucking, but C'len has withdrawn. His face is savage, his body shaking with the need to continue, yet he will not hurt K'ver, not even to relieve himself.

     Still -- "Over," he rasps. K'ver's limbs are still tingling. When he's too slow about it, C'len groans and grabs him and throws him onto his face. His weight pins K'ver down, his face presses into K'ver's hair, breathing the scent, and his cock grinds hard against the cleft of K'ver's ass, feverishly frotting.

     (The haze abates just enough that K'ver is actually able to look around. He sees S'bastian, moaning out some kind of chant while he fucks M'tin's protege; she's clawed up his back something awful. He sees M'tin against the far wall, feverishly jerking at his own cock; K'ver snorts that no one else wanted to ease the mating urge with such an inferior beast. K'ras, the old Weyrleader, has been luckier; he and A'rik twine around each other like strange, revolting white serpents. To each their own. All is fair in lust and dragonflight.)

     "K'ver," C'len breathes against his ear. His rutting has grown sharper, and he's put a hand under K'ver to stroke his revived cock, enticing. (Somewhere, Honnleath is going faster, losing himself in it, his thoughts dissolving into a rising rhythm. Lotherinth thinks clearly, <<Do you feel this, K'ver?>> His answer is _Yes, yes, baby, he's wonderful_.) C'len's kissing K'ver's shoulders, too, one hand fumbling at a nipple, though really they're both too worked up for such subtle pleasures. Trying anyway, because C'len is C'len. K'ver shudders and fucks into that tight, pumping hand; the enticement is working. "K'ver, I am yours. _K'ver_."

     "Yeah," he says, arching his back like Lotherinth and bracing himself. C'len moans in helpless response. "Wasn't done with you yet, by half."

     C'len's answer is pure abandon and relentless pleasure, until the dragons come back to earth.

#

     It takes a while for the mating urge to fade. K'ver drifts through it, not bothering to think, reveling in sensation. Curling yellow hair beneath his fingers. Someone's tongue, probing someone's nipple. A voice in his ear, breathless and inviting: "What would you have of me?" And whenever K'ver speaks his desire -- more fucking, please, bathe with me, your skin is so soft for such a hard man, Maker I want to taste you, put your hand on my throat, it's all right, I trust you and I know you want to, _more fucking_ sweet Maker don't stop 'til we're both raw -- his wishes are granted. It is a curious power to have. The dragons have nothing to do with the pleasure, anymore, but Lotherinth is with him, of course. Always.

     Somehow they end up back in C'len's weyr. Lotherinth and Honnleath are twined together on the couch, spent. K'ver lies sprawled in the bronze rider's enormous bed, with C'len resting half on top of him again, a twist of sheet their sole concession to the cool air. K'ver doesn't know what day it is, or how much time has passed since Lotherinth first took to the air. He's hungry. He's sore, muscles and otherwise. He's exhausted. C'len, his head pillowed on K'ver's other shoulder, strokes his arm, fingertips tracing the outline of the Lotherinth tattoo on his deltoid. His eyes are shut, but he's awake. K'ver's eyes are shut too. They haven't spoken in hours. Since the storm ended, it's been nothing but lying here, touching, knowing satisfaction.

     <<You are happy.>>

     K'ver lets out a little amused breath. "And you're awful smug, you oversized fire lizard."

     Her tail curls up, a sure sign of smugness. <<This one is worthy of you. I know. I have good taste in humans.>>

     "Oh, do you?" She does.

     <<Yes. Look how he pets you, even now. He thinks your hide is finer than all others'. He is right.>> Her thoughts become a slithery cascade of bright pleasure. <<And he was delicious, in mating.>>

     "Don't be pervy, Loth. It's bad for the babies, or something."

     He feels C'len's cheek flex into a smile, where it rests against his shoulder. "Honnleath has nothing but praise for your, ah, presentation, as well."

     "Maker's Shell. That's what the next generation of Kirkwall dragons is going to be, then: noble, fun-loving, and filthy-minded as all get out."

     "So it seems." C'len's hand trails up to K'ver's lips. K'ver can feel his lashes move; his eyes are open. "I knew what I was doing when I offered myself to you."

     K'ver catches his breath in surprise, then lifts his head to stare at C'len. C'len's watching him, hazel eyes clear and calm and lovely in their conviction. "What?"

     "I know that I am safe with you."

     _He feels safe with you_ , Honnleath had told K'ver, an age and a lovemaking ago. Ah. The dragon been trying to explain; K'ver just hadn't known how to listen.

     _He chooses to be yours_ , Marian had said.

     K'ver blinks, then has to blink again, because his eyes sting. A privilege, but also a responsibility. A trust. So _great_ a trust, though! K'ver takes C'len's hand tentatively, reverently, and vows to be worthy of him.

     <<Silly,>> Lotherinth says. She yawns, fangs flashing, then lets her thoughts drift back toward sleep. <<You are both worthy of _each other_ , as proven on wing and through trial. Humans are very silly creatures.>> This elicits a sleepy rumble of agreement from Honnleath. <<Go to sleep. Mate with C'len again in the morning. Eat. Fly and destroy the Reapers. These things are all that matter.>>

     C'len's expression turns wry. He heard that, too. "As my queen wishes," he says. But his voice is so very tender, and the way he's looking at K'ver, it's obvious Lotherinth isn't the queen he means.

     K'ver can think of nothing to say, so he simply holds his weyrmate closer, and listens to his dragon's sage advice.

**Author's Note:**

> Will there be more? Who the fuck knows? My muse is once again trying to destroy any chance I might have of meeting other, more important deadlines. Sigh. I guess we'll see.


End file.
